Avacta Group PLC Issue of Equity (2927S)

TIDMAVCT

RNS Number : 2927S

Avacta Group PLC

07 July 2020

07 July 2020

Avacta Group plc

("Avacta" or "the Group" or "the Company")

Issue of Equity

Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of Affimer(R) biotherapeutics and reagents, today announces that following the exercise of EMI share options by Group employees it has issued and allotted 357,906 new ordinary shares of 10 pence each in the Company ("Ordinary Shares").

Application will be made for the Ordinary Shares to be admitted to trading on AIM and dealings are expected to commence on 14 July 2020 . The Ordinary Shares will rank pari passu with the existing Ordinary Shares of the Company.

Following Admission, the Company's enlarged issued share capital will be 249,155,721. This figure may be used by shareholders in the Company as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change in their interest in, the share capital of the Company under the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.

-Ends -

For further information from Avacta Group plc, please contact:

 
 Avacta Group plc                                         Tel: [phone] 
  Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer                            www.avacta.com 
  Tony Gardiner, Chief Financial Officer 
 finnCap Ltd (Nomad and Joint Broker)                     Tel: [phone] 
  Geoff Nash / Giles Rolls / Teddy                                  www.finncap.com 
  Whiley - Corporate Finance 
  Tim Redfern - ECM 
 Zeus Capital Limited (Joint Broker)                       Tel: [phone] 
  John Goold / Rupert Woolfenden -                            www.zeuscapital.co.uk 
  Corporate Broking 
 
   Yellow Jersey (Financial Media and                      Tel: [phone] 
   IR)                                                    [e-mail] 
   Sarah Hollins 
   Henry Wilkinson 
                                                           Tel: [phone] 
   Zyme Communications (Trade and Regional     [e-mail] 
   Media) 
   Katie Odgaard 
 
   About Avacta Group plc -   https://www.avacta.com 

Avacta is developing novel cancer immunotherapies combining its two proprietary platforms - Affimer(R) biotherapeutics and pre|CISION(TM) tumour targeted chemotherapy. With this approach, the Company aims to address the lack of a durable response to current immunotherapies experienced by most patients. The Company's therapeutics development activities are based in Cambridge, UK.

The Company benefits from near-term revenues generated from Affimer reagents for diagnostics, bioprocessing and research, through a separate business unit based in Wetherby, UK.

The Affimer platform is an alternative to antibodies derived from a small human protein. Despite their shortcomings, antibodies currently dominate markets worth in excess of $100bn. Affimer technology has been designed to address many of these negative performance issues, principally: the time taken, and the reliance on an animal's immune response, to generate new antibodies; poor specificity in many cases; large size and cost.

Avacta's pre|CISION platform, activates chemotherapy only in the tumour, thereby limiting systemic exposure and damage to healthy tissues, and thus improving the overall safety and therapeutic potential of these powerful anti-cancer treatments.

By combining these two platforms the Company is building a wholly owned pipeline of novel cancer therapies with the aim of creating effective treatments for all cancer patients including those who do not respond to existing immunotherapies. Avacta expects to take its first drug, a pre|CISION targeted form of the standard-of-care Doxorubicin, into the clinic in late 2020.

Avacta has established drug development partnerships with pharma and biotech, including with Moderna Therapeutics Inc., a collaboration with LG Chem to develop treatments for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases worth up to $310m, a partnership with ADC Therapeutics to develop Affimer drug conjugates and a joint venture in South Korea with Daewoong Pharmaceuticals to develop the next generation of stem cell therapies that incorporate Affimer immuno-modulators. Avacta actively seeks to license its proprietary platforms in a range of therapeutic areas.

The Avacta diagnostics business unit works with partners world-wide to develop Affimers for evaluation by those third parties with the objective of establishing royalty bearing license deals. The Company is also developing a small in-house pipeline of Affimer-based diagnostic assays for licensing.

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July 07, 2020 09:06 ET (13:06 GMT)